Article by Matt Dippel and Joey Privett | Photography by Helen Reimand | Owl Staff
The big game is coming on and you’re tired of watching at home; you want to get out and enjoy it with your friends. You want someone to share the same excited or depressed feelings you get when your team triumphs or fails.
Harford County sports some great places to eat and enjoy the game with a choice for every taste. C.R. Wings has the hookup for the best wings buffalo style, The Greene Turtle provides the big, crowded bar atmosphere complete with an unreasonable amount of giant TVs, and Bruce Bitner’s Café and Grille serves up gourmet food with an “everybody knows your name” atmosphere.
C.R. Wings is located behind Chili’s and Taco Bell in Bel Air. They serve up the best buffalo wings in Harford County, fried to crispy perfection when you order them (none of that weak, baked business from that other wing chain in town), and tossed in one of their many delicious homemade sauces. Ask for the sauce you need to sign a waiver to eat; it’s really good.
“Harford County sports some great places to eat and enjoy the game with a choice for every taste.”
The Greene Turtle is the perfect place to go for a big, crowded, social atmosphere while enjoying some standard bar food and cold beers. They offer your standard bar fare; chicken tenders, steamed shrimp, fries, mozzarella sticks and the like. Being a chain, though, the food is somewhat lacking. If you’re looking for some good eats and a more subdued atmosphere, then Bruce Bitner’s is the way to go.
Bruce Bitner’s Café and Grille is an underappreciated culinary gem in Bel Air with a down home atmosphere of friendliness and familiarity.
Bitner’s prepares nearly everything from scratch, including a delicious crab fondue appetizer that puts other bars’ recipes to shame. The cream of crab soup is made fresh in house daily, the constantly changing seafood selection is always fresh, and the vegetables are locally grown.
But the real treats at Bitner’s are the steaks and burgers. Cut from a massive slab of top round, the steaks are individually seasoned and grilled to order. The Deer Creek Burgers are a specialty, and with $5 specials, you can’t go wrong with one of the many signature burgers like the BBQ Bacon Cheddar or Chipotle Burger.
Possibly the best part of Bitner’s is the friendly atmosphere. A small, consistent staff will learn your name immediately and bring you back for more. The highly social regular bar crowd will get you involved in the conversation no matter if you are a familiar or fresh face.
Harford County sports bars offer up something different for everybody.